A lot has been written about Erik ten Hag this week, but nothing better than this forensic piece by Tim de Lisle. It’s full of great lines, shrewd analysis and original observations.
It wasn’t just the results. Ten Hag’s team had less of an identity after 26 months than Unai Emery’s Villa or Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs had in six. He often sent out a team that you just knew would get overrun in midfield. His substitutions seldom made them better: he managed to overturn the proud United tradition of the Fergie-time winner, losing more PL games to goals in 90+ minutes than all his predecessors put together.
It’s been a week of mixed emotions – Erik leaving, taking over, Wednesday’s game and how it went.
There’s been no contact [with Ruben Amorim]. It’s been communicated to the players that I’ll be in charge until next Sunday and then the new manager will take over. That means we can focus on trying to win the next three games.
From the archive
A League Cup meeting on New Year’s Day, instantly forgettable were it not for one of football’s greatest-ever juxtapositions of beauty and the beast. Ron Harris had many qualities, but subtlety was not one of them.
Here he is heaving into view from way out, belabouring George Best’s ankles with a proper old-school reducer. It’s a textbook piece of uberviolence – a vicious sliding tackle perfectly timed and executed, as graceful as brutality can ever get – but it was all for naught. Best ignored Chopper’s galoot-isms, somehow retained his balance – despite being kicked almost horizontal in mid-air – and continued his run.
Beauty and the beast. As the willowy, long-haired Best sashays round the keeper and calmly slots home, as androgynous as you like, Harris, bloated with testosterone, picks himself heavily off the turf.
This pass, though. I just can’t get enough.
Read Jacob Steinberg on the quietly impressive Enzo Maresca
This is a process and not the story of one man reviving a sinking ship. The bigger point is Maresca has fitted into Chelsea’s structure. He has collaborated with the sporting directors, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, and judging him solely on results is reductive. The more pertinent question is whether Maresca is improving his players, finding common ground with the recruitment team and working productively across a set-up implemented by Stewart and Winstanley. So far the answer is yes.
“I don’t know enough about football to throw around words like ‘tactical discipline’ and whatnot but watchingCole Palmer now you get the sense that he would’ve never flourished as much under Pep, no?” says Phil Podolsky. “It’s not that Pep is Tony Pulis exactly but you know what I mean, right? Which reminds me what you once wrote about RvN’s move to Madrid – that it was a rare transfer that was beneficial for all the three parties involved. Maybe Palmer to Chelsea was like that too? Except I suspect that City wouldn’t mind having him in the squad now.”
I agree. Palmer is best with a blank canvas, and Pep doesn’t really do those. That said, Palmer could still have played from the right for City and scored 20+ goals a season.
Full time: Tottenham 4-1 Aston Villa
Spurs, who were 1-0 down at half-time, blew Aston Villa away in an electric second half. John Brewin has all the details.
Ruud van Nistelrooy will manage United for three more games, all at Old Trafford, while Ruben Amorim serves his notice at Sporting Lisbon.
Read Jonathan Wilson on Ruben Amorim
In Amorim, United finally have one of the thrusting pups of European management, somebody who drew interest from both Liverpool and Manchester City. Not only that, but there is an obvious similarity to [Sir Alex] Ferguson in that in a league that is essentially a duopoly, he took a third force to the title.
Team news
Ruud van Nistelrooy makes three changes from the side that walloped Leicester in the Carabao Cup. Andre Onana returns in goal, with Altay Bayindir dropping to the bench, while Noussair Mazraoui and Rasmus Hojlund replace Victor Lindelof and Joshua Zirkzee.
Enzo Maresca, who made 11 changes for the Carabao Cup tie at St James’ Park, makes 11 more: it’s the same team that started against Newcastle in the Premier League a week ago.
Preamble
We interrupt the Manchester United news cycle to bring you an association football match from Old Trafford: United v Chelsea in the Premier League. The focus will be on United, as it tends to be when they’ve just sacked another manager, but it’s probably a bigger game for Chelsea. A win would take them fourth in the table*, five points behind the leaders Liverpool, and set them up for an even bigger game at home to Arsenal next weekend.
All logic says Chelsea won’t be title contenders until next season at the earliest, although this isn’t a club that cares much for logic. And they have Cole Palmer, whose imagination and brilliance are making even the most level-headed neutral get carried away.
Even so, if you offered Enzo Maresca a fourth-place finish he’d surely take it. Ruben Amorim certainly would. United – spoiler alert! – have had a desperate start to the season, yet the imperfections of the other big teams provide a soupçon of hope. If United win today they’ll be only three points behind Chelsea and four behind Arsenal. Funny old game.
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